Nroff & braindamaged printers

[nather at utastro.UUCP]

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A correction to the "man" pages posted for nroff terminal driving tables:
ignore the part that reads

	.I Nroff
	assumes that boldface mode is reset automatically by the
	.I twnl
	string, because many letter-quality printers reset the boldface
	mode when they receive a carriage return;
	the
	.I twnl
	string should include whatever characters are necessary to
	reset the boldface mode.

This was a local hack required by a bit of braindamage in the NEC Spinwriter
and certain Diablo printers; whenever these printers receive a CR they reset
the auto-boldfacing and auto-underlining modes.  Unfortunately this confuses
the hell out of programs with a straightforward and sensible model of the
printers they talk to (like "nroff"); anybody know what prompted this bit of
silliness on NEC and Diablo's part?

	Guy Harris
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Unfortunately the braindamage is spreading.  We recently got a trio of Diablo
Extended Character Set printers because scientific types often speak in strange
tongues(Greek, math, whatever) and I had to teach nroff about them. Further,
we wanted an ACT-5A terminal with a bigger (home-zapped) character ROM to be
able to display them for proofreading.  The terminals splash the *following*
line with underlining or reverse video (our substitute for boldface) whenever
a newline is encountered with these things on.  The only common fix I could
think of was to coax nroff into shutting them off, emitting the newline,
then turning them back on again if they were active.  This "fix" seems not
to bother printers without these "features" so I guess it's harmless, but
it seems a shame to have to do it.

                                       Ed Nather
                                  ihnp4!kpno!utastro!nather